


Transatlanticism

by eirabach



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Excessive Drinking, F/M, Fish out of Water, Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, Lots and Lots of Drinking, Swearing, london is terrible, meet ugly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 10:40:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13702791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eirabach/pseuds/eirabach
Summary: Emma Swan went to Britain looking for family. It should have been a Hallmark movie, a Christmas miracle waiting to happen. Instead she’s stuck in a grimy London ‘flat’, with the worst next door neighbor in the world.Well, maybe not the worst.





	Transatlanticism

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, here it is! My contribution to the @captainswanbigbang ‘s little bang! Thank you so much to all the mods for organising it and for all your hard work. Specifically I owe a blood debt to @phiralovesloki for being an awesome beta, my heart on a platter to @katie-dub and @killiancygnus for cheerleading/helping with edits and, of course, a million thank yous to my incredibly talented and lovely artist @shady-swan-jones who sent me a prompt a year ago and had to wait a reaaaaally long time to see it come to fruition in a way she almost certainly didn’t expect! The fact that we were paired together makes me grin like a loon Sophie, I hope I did you proud.
> 
> As well as the beautiful banner which you can see here, @shady-swan-jones has also created this gorgeous artwork. I am a spoilt writer.
> 
> https://shady-swan-jones.tumblr.com/post/170945324735/transatlanticism-by-mahstatins-emma-swan-went-to  
> https://shady-swan-jones.tumblr.com/post/170945396855/its-nice-she-blurts-and-bites-her-lip  
> https://shady-swan-jones.tumblr.com/post/170952121485/transatlanticism-by-mahstatins-let-me-stop
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks for the title Death Cab. And the tears.

 

 

Emma Swan has never really been one for romantic comedies. They aren’t made for the likes of her - a woman described as prickly by her friends and rather less flatteringly by the vanishingly few dates she’s had over the years. No, romantic comedies are really more Mary Margaret’s thing, full of hope and joy and promises that things will get better if you  _ believe in yourself, Emma. _

 

(She believes in herself just fine, as it happens. It’s other people she struggles with.)

 

It makes sense, then, that her vague memories of watching one such movie years ago are of being curled up under a blanket on Mary Margaret’s college futon, her attention carefully focused on the television and not on the way David’s hands roamed over Mary Margaret's knee. Public displays of affection were even  _ less  _ appealing to her than some stupid movie’s ideas about the perfection of true love, and that’s why she remembers most of it even now. There were lobsters, for sure, and something about pornography that made Mary Margaret gasp. (She hopes that was the reason. Maybe her memory blanked that part out.)

 

And at the end, a beautiful airport reunion that made David sniff surreptitiously against Mary Margaret’s shoulder.

 

Her experience of London’s Heathrow is nothing like that.

 

She arrives on a miserable foggy November night, clutching her single case and blinking grit from her eyes in the overly bright arrivals hall.

 

She steps through the late night crowd waiting for loved ones and out into the darkness, struggling to read her new address from the back of an aircraft napkin in the dim glow of an orange street light.

 

( _ Peckham _ . Mary Margaret had said, a little furrow between her brows even as she tried to smile.  _ Sounds fancy _ .

 

_ If you’re a chicken, maybe _ . David had muttered, pulling Emma against his side.  _ Do you have to go _ ?)

 

She did.

 

The email had come late on a Saturday night. A woman who claimed to know her.

 

A woman who claimed to have found her  _ mother _ .

 

The mother who’d abandoned her at birth, now living in London and searching, apparently, for the daughter she’d lost.

 

_ Left _ , Emma had thought as she read the email. The daughter she’d  _ left. _

 

She’s no idea how this Zelena woman has managed to track her down, nor how she knows her story. She shouldn’t. It’s a secret Emma has kept close to her heart as she’s struggled to make her way in the world, only Mary Margaret and David knowing anything of the truth.

 

She’d bought the plane tickets anyway.

 

She’s not an idiot; she knows it’s a long shot. It’s been almost thirty years since she was found cold and hungry at the side of a highway half the world away, thirty years of longing and searching that got her absolutely nowhere.

 

She knows it’s a long shot, and maybe she is an idiot, but she’s still got to try.

 

She steps out of the circle of the street light and shoves her thumb out forcefully in the direction of one of the jello-mold-shaped taxicabs that seem to be circling the arrival hall like so many black shiny vultures. The one that stops for her is driven by a sour-faced man whose pursed lips and nicotine-stained fingers glow festively bright in the light of a string of flashing fairy lights tossed haphazardly over the dash.

 

“Where to, love?” he asks gruffly. 

 

Emma shrugs uncomfortably and passes the slip of paper through the window. “Here, I guess.”

 

The man sucks in a breath between his teeth. “South of the river? At this time of night?”

 

Emma shrugs again, but there’s a little more frustration in it now as the night air creeps down her collar. “Well, I can’t stay here,” she says, “so I guess so.”

 

The man smiles, a sudden, unexpected thing that makes his eyes twinkle and Emma’s heart rest a little easier in her chest.

 

“Jump in then.”

 

—

 

The driver’s name is Leroy, and for a first introduction to a nation and culture fairly alien to her, he’s nothing if not informative.

 

And loud.

 

And grumpy.

 

“I’m just saying,” he half-bellows as they join what feels like a million other vehicles in a long, slow crawl along the highway, “that if they expect anyone to vote for ‘em they ought to do more for the common man! All sitting up there in their fancy houses! All the same the lot of them, I had that Boris in here the other week and he wanted me to pick his bike up for him, I said mate…”

 

Emma attempts to tune him out, pressing her nose against the glass and watching the lights of the nearby buildings flash by in a blur.

 

London is a city not entirely unfamiliar to her. She’s seen her fair share of BBC exports and movies aiming to appear exotic to a US audience. But there’s something about the mix of long, low terraces and bright chrome and glass towers that makes her heart beat a little faster and her nerves twitch.

 

The people they pass have their faces turned down to the damp sidewalk, their collars turned up against the drizzle as they trudge home with brightly coloured bags emblazoned with the names of stores she’s never heard of. Buses pass them on the wrong side of the road, great red monsters that belch dark smoke as they come to a stop and spew dozens more people onto the streets.

 

London, at least the London Leroy shows her, isn’t wild and bright like New York. It’s darker, older, the buildings closing in around the two lane road, their windows blind above the reach of the streetlights, their doorways full of bundles of newspapers and the shivering homeless.

 

There’s something oddly dystopian about it, she thinks, but maybe that’s the jet lag talking.

 

Eventually the streets grow brighter, the traffic slower, until they burst out into the midst of a scene Emma finds instantly familiar - the river, wide and dark; the bridge lit up with strings of lights and the brake lights of all the cars in front; that weird wheel thing she never quite understood.

 

Leroy must hear her brief intake of breath because he pauses in his rant about  _ that bloody new money _ to grin at her over his shoulder.

 

“Welcome to London.” 

 

She can’t help it. She grins back.

 

—

 

Things are grimmer over the river, the drizzle heavier, the buildings swathed in chipped graffiti, their doorways boarded with steel.

 

Leroy gets quieter, almost as though he’s waiting for her to say something, maybe ask to return to one of the brightly lit hotels they’d passed in the centre.

 

She doesn’t.

 

She was a child of the back streets of Boston, New York, Portland, Seattle. Everywhere and nowhere, all at once. This, she understands. Here, she breathes easily.

 

But when Leroy pulls up outside the compound of high-rise apartment blocks, their grey walls cold in the glare of the headlights and the wind whistling through their narrow alleyways, she hesitates.

 

Maybe she should have Googled this a bit better after all. It was cheap though.

 

Really cheap.

 

Too cheap.

 

“‘Scuse me for asking,” says Leroy, something in his tone telling her that these words are more carefully chosen than any he’s used on the journey, “but do you know someone here? Is someone waiting for you?”

 

“I don’t know,” she half whispers as she hands over the smooth, unfamiliar notes. And then beneath the slam of the taxi door, “I hope so.”

 

—

 

Emma stands before the elevator door glaring at the sign haphazardly taped to it, the Out of Order faded almost to unreadability, the ‘sorry for any inconvenience caused’ struck through with a childish rendering of a cock.

 

“Classy.” She shifts the weight of her bag in her hand as she double checks the flat numbers Tenth floor, of course. “Helpful.”

 

“All right there, love?”

 

She spins on the spot, the key to the flat between her knuckles and her suitcase held out like a shield.

 

The man at the bottom of the stairs lifts both hands and an eyebrow - an act of surrender that doesn’t fool her for a second.

 

“Easy, lass, just checking everything was ok.”

 

He sways slightly when he speaks, a touch of colour high in his cheeks that sets Emma’s internal alarm blaring. Dangerous, it tells her. Highly dangerous.

 

His eyes flick over her body and she tenses, shaking her head sharply and struggling to keep her tone even. “In your dreams, pal.”

 

He grins, and his cheeks dimple.

 

The alarm blares louder.

 

“Oh,” he says. “Undoubtedly.” He sways lower in some mockery of a bow. “I’m sorry, where are my manners? Let me help you.”

 

“I’ve got it.” 

 

She swings her case around so that it’s between them as she attempts to get past him and up the stairs. It’s heavy, and the momentum of the movement makes her stumble ever so slightly.

 

“So I see,” says the man, his grin dropping slightly. “But a gentleman never lets a lady struggle alone.”

 

He holds out his hand, lifting his eyebrow once again in the direction of her case, and this time Emma fails to restrain her scoff.

 

“Does that usually work for you?”

 

The man’s eyebrow disappears into his hairline.

 

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, love.”

 

“Not your love,” she half sneers, tightening her grip on the handle of her luggage, “so you can save the… whatever  _ that _ is.”

 

She gestures vaguely in the direction of his face, her scowl deepening as his lips twitch.

 

“You mean the manners?” he says, but she can hear the laughter bubbling behind the words.

 

“Hardly,” she snaps, turning on her heel to continue her trek up the staircase. She doesn’t know if it’s the hideously patterned flooring or just the sheer exhaustion that’s leaking into her bones, but she finds herself swaying alarmingly as she attempts to hoist her case after her.

 

“Careful!”

 

His hand is at her back. She’s ready to elbow him straight in the gut, but he pulls away a half-second later.

 

“Stairs are steep,” he says. “Watch yourself.”

 

“Yeah,” she grumbles as she begins to drag her belongings up the flight. “I intend to.”

 

—

 

That first night is dire. 

 

There’s a strip light in the kitchen that buzzes in displeasure whenever she turns it on, not that she much needs to since she somehow forgot that bargain basement Airbnb rentals don’t come with a fully stocked refrigerator. She spends her first night in Britain munching on half a pack of airplane peanuts and sipping oddly metallic faucet water, listening to the strip light’s complaints and wondering what the fuck she’s done.

 

The second night, however, is worse.

 

It’s rained all day, the view of London promised by the advertisement shrouded in a hazy grey mist as she’d considered her options.

 

Starve or drown, she’d supposed, and chosen to drown, striking out in what she’d hoped was the direction of food.

 

She regrets it.

 

The winter coat she’d worn back in Boston is far too thick for the mild weather and she finds herself sweating before she’s made it even two hundred yards from her building, her hair curling at her temples and her jeans stick damply to her legs.

 

Ahead of her, a man in a hoodie is consuming a pastry like his life depends on it, the crumbs catching in the scruff of his beard as he leans against the chipped blue railings that line the sidewalk.

 

He lets out a little grunt of satisfaction as she approaches and her stomach grumbles in reply.

 

Beggars can’t be choosers.

 

“Excuse me,” she says, tapping him smartly on the shoulder and schooling her features into a friendly sort of smile. “Where did you get that from?”

 

He turns around, and she immediately wishes she’d chosen starvation. His eyes are a little more sunken this morning, his hair poking haphazardly from beneath his hood, the general aura of hangover not helped by the way his jaw drops when he sees her.

 

“You!” he says, and shakes his head, scrubbing the crumbs from his beard with the back of his hand. “Where did you come from?”

 

Emma folds her arms over her chest and glowers.

 

“Are you stalking me?”

 

“No, I…” he blinks three times. “Greggs.”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“The sausage… I got it from Greggs.”

 

Emma wrinkles her nose. “Who’s Greg?”

 

The man laughs, a deep, rich sound that seems incongruous coming from someone so clearly recovering from the excesses of drink. “Greggs is… it’s a shop, love. Not some sort of… of… personal pastry dealer.”

 

“Right,” Emma sighs, shifting her weight from foot to foot. “Right.”

 

His smile drops, and he takes half a step toward her - one that she echoes in her half a step back. “Listen. I’m sorry if I scared you last night. It’s not an excuse but I was really  _ really _ drunk.”

 

“I couldn’t tell.”

 

“Ha ha. But seriously.” His brows furrow. “Are you ok, Miss..?”

 

“I’m fine,” she snaps. 

 

—

 

She isn’t.

 

She sits in her rented kitchen surrounded by paper bags that once contained knock-off bear claws, her greasy fingers slipping over the keyboard as she sets up Skype and listens to the clock ticking away the minutes until it’s a decent enough hour that she can call Mary Margaret.

 

Zelena hasn’t emailed her yet. Hasn’t called. Hasn’t appeared at her door with a birth certificate and a beneficent genetic relative.

 

Drunk pastry guy hadn’t followed her except with wide blue eyes as she’d carried her armload of junk food past him on her way back home.

 

He could have offered to carry them. So much for manners. Not that she needs his help. Or manners. Or him. Or anyone.

 

She never did ask his name. Or give him hers. For the best, probably.

 

(It’s quiet but for the way the clock is ticking.)

 

The Skype alert makes her jump and she slips sideways off the plastic chair as she scrambles to answer. Mary Margaret’s first image of her is slightly off centre and with pastry crumbs liberally scattered across her shirt.

 

There’s an allegory there somehow, probably. Mary Margaret picks up on it, leaning in towards the screen, her brow furrowed in concern as though she could perhaps reach through and drag Emma back home.

 

“Emma, are you okay?”

 

“What the hell time do you call this?” Emma says in lieu of a reply. “It must be barely dawn.”

 

“It’s 5:30,” says Mary Margaret as if that’s of no import whatsoever. “And I was worried.”

 

“You saw me yesterday,” Emma says, but she knows it’s pointless.

 

Mary Margaret always worries, and David worries even more. It’s what they do, what they’ve always done since unlocking her tragic backstory and taking up the mantle of her weirdly young parental figures.

 

It’s rather sweet, even if it does make witnessing their occasional public displays of affection creepier than it should be.

 

David appears behind his wife, already dressed in his uniform.

 

“Everything all right, Emma? Did you find the apartment ok? Have you heard from the adoption people?”

 

“We’re worried,” Mary Margaret repeats, and smiles. “So?”

 

Emma bites her lip.

 

“Yes, no… I don’t know. It’s weird here, guys. Really weird.”

 

David’s face immediately morphs into ‘cop mode’, his hand going subconsciously to his belt as though he plans to shoot whatever or whoever is bothering Emma right through the screen of the laptop.

 

“Weird how?” asks Mary Margaret, and Emma can see her calming hand on David’s thigh. Homesickness rises up her throat and makes her eyes water, and Mary Margaret notices, of course she notices.

 

(She’s the only one who ever has, really, and that just makes the blurriness worse.)

 

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks again, softer, and David sits down on the edge of one of the green kitchen stools just off screen. Emma closes her eyes and imagines she’s right there with them, the cold metal cutting into her lower back as she leans back and sighs.

 

“I’m just tired. And hungry. Do you know they don’t have bear claws?”

 

“Now that is a tragedy,” says Mary Margaret, and Emma can hear the way she smiles. “Thank the lord for independence.”

 

“I know, right?” Emma shakes her head slowly, then sits up and smiles blearily at them both. “It’ll be okay, it’s not for long.”

 

“So you have heard from that woman?” David asks, leaning forward slightly. “What’s going on?”

 

“Not yet,” she admits, “but I only just got here, maybe she’s just out of the office.”

 

“What do you think will happen?” Mary Margaret asks, her brow furrowing. “Will she just turn up? With your - ”

 

There’s a long, pregnant pause.

 

“My mom?” Emma shrugs. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

 

“I wish you hadn’t gone, Emma.” David rises from the stool and begins to pace behind Mary Margaret. “You don’t know anything about this woman they’ve found, how do we know she’s your mother? She could be anyone. And now they’ve got the money -“

 

The money. Yeah. Not her brightest move, that. At first she’d ignored Zelena’s email, mentally filed it away with the dozens of Nigerian princes she hears from each month, but Mary Margaret and David had been sunning themselves in Aruba after a wedding filled with love and laughter and disgustingly adoring family. Left suddenly and utterly alone, and feeling pretty drunk and hideously lonely all Emma could think through her haze of bitterness and gin was:

 

_ I want that. I want what they have. _

 

She’d sent a few increasingly misspelled emails and received assurances in return, although the details of them seem sketchy now. She could have sworn the word guarantee was in there for a start although the paper trail says otherwise. It hadn’t mattered though, not when three days and several thousand dollars later, she’d got the call.

 

_ I’ve found your mother _ .

 

David has a mother, a soft, devoted, loving mother, so Emma bites down on the snappy, sleep deprived retort she can feel at the tip of her tongue and tries for a reassuring smile.

 

“David - ”

 

“I know, I know. You had to, I get it really, I do. I’m just…”

 

“Worried? Don’t be. This might be a stupid thing to have done but if it works - it'll be worth it.”

 

David smiles, and Mary Margaret sighs.

 

“We miss you,” she says simply. “It’s Thanksgiving on Thursday and you’re not here. It feels strange.”

 

Emma laughs, shaking her head. “Not as strange as me giving you a hope speech. And anyway you'll have the place to yourselves!”

 

“That’s not what Thanksgiving is about,” David says, solemn again. “You know that.”

 

“I know,” she says.

 

\--- 

 

But she doesn’t.

 

Thanksgiving in foster care had been odd. The expected levels of gratitude were hard to muster up when you knew that the people who purported to care for you were doing it for the money - and often doing a pretty crappy job at that. The years she’d spent in the group homes had been even worse, every empty place at the long dinner table a reminder that some other child finally had a reason to be thankful, a place to call home.

 

They were filled up soon enough, replaced by other needy faces that would be replaced again in their turn.

 

All except Emma.

 

It had never been Emma’s turn.

 

This year isn’t really shaping up to be a banner year, either.

 

“Ugh,” she grumbles, peering at the slightly out of focus label on the rapidly depleting bottle of whiskey. “This shit makes you maudlin.”

 

She toes at the remote on the coffee table, loathe to extract herself from the cocoon of sweaters she’s wrapped herself up in, having been defeated by the heating system in the apartment, and groans miserably as her efforts only push it further away.

 

“What is this trash?” she asks the bottle.

 

The bottle doesn’t reply.

 

What  _ appears  _ to be on the television is some sort of Grey’s rip off, where the doctors are grey-faced, miserable sorts with distinctly unsexy sex lives and the likelihood of a patient’s hideous drawn-out death rises in line with how happy they appear at the beginning of the hour.

 

Kid living on the streets with a drug problem? Fine.

 

Cute granny. Doomed.

 

(Emma finds herself extremely relieved that wherever ‘Holby’ is, she isn’t.)

 

At least that’s what it looks like. It’s not like she can hear a word with that racket coming through the wall.

 

The whole building seems to be rattling to the beat of next door’s rather less-than-festive heavy metal record collection, until Emma can feel every note vibrate up her spine and settle somewhere just behind her eyes. There’s a pause, just time for her to let out a long, shuddering groan, before the next track starts up.

 

“God. Right. Enough. That’s enough.”

 

She shrugs off her makeshift blankets and staggers to her feet. Keeping the bottle clutched in her fist for protection she stumbles out into the hallway and hammers on the peeling door next to hers.

 

“Are you  _ insane _ ?” she yells between batterings. “Shut. The. Hell.  _ Up. _ ”

 

A door on the opposite side of the corridor opens a crack and a gruff voice mutters something that might be ‘good luck with that’ before closing again - the bolt slammed into place so hard she actually hears it over the thundering bass.

 

Grimacing, Emma takes another swig from her bottle and, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, kicks the door with as much force as she can muster.

 

“I  _ said _ ,” she bellows, frustration and whiskey conspiring to have tears gather at the corners of her eyes, “ _ shut. U -  _ oh.”  The door opens beneath her heel. “Hello?”

 

The music keeps blaring, but no one answers. Beyond the door is darkly ominous, and Emma grips her bottle tighter still.

 

“Hello?”

 

Still nothing, and as she looks over her shoulder into the empty corridor, she wishes fervently she’d been allowed to bring her gun.

 

“Stupid fucking country,” she grumbles, stepping into the darkness. “Stupid fucking music.”

 

Emma is no fool, could never afford to be, and she’s worked in bail bonds long enough to be under no illusions about how terrible some people are. So it’s with trepidation and a whole bunch of Dutch courage that she feels her way along the wall of the flat until her hand lands on the lightswitch.

 

“I’m turning the light on,” she tells the darkness, her voice cracking with the effort of being heard. “I’m prepared to stab you, so no funny business, you got it?”

 

As soon as her eyes adjust to the darkness she wrinkles her face up in distaste at the disaster zone before her. She spots the stereo right away, rocking under the assault of the music, but between it and Emma is a sea of empty cans and bottles and what look like years’ worth of newspaper clippings all strewn about as though by some particularly precise hurricane. There’s no sign of the owner of any of it, so she picks her way gingerly across the room and pulls the cord out of the wall.

 

The silence is somehow even louder than what came before.

 

“Okay. Slight Silent Hill thing going on here. Anyone home?”

 

There’s a couch pushed against the far wall underneath the windows covered with the detritus of what must be a half dozen take-out dinners, the dregs of which are starting to smell sour, and a large, crumpled grey duvet.

 

The duvet groans.

 

“Seriously?” Emma calls, cans crunching beneath her feet as she makes her way over. “I thought you’d have to be dead to sleep though that. Wake up, I have words for you.”

 

She pulls at the corner of the duvet sending a couple of old pizza boxes tumbling to join their brethren on the floor.

 

“Rise and fucking shine, asshole.”

 

The duvet resists her slightly, but with another sharp tug and the tinkling fall of several filthy forks, she manages to pull it far enough away to reveal a familiar pale face, greenish in the glare of the overhead light.

 

“You,” she groans. “Why are you everywhere I go in this goddamn country?”

 

Stairwell-pastry-stalker guy blinks owlishly up at her before attempting what she thinks is a smirk.

 

“Why hello,” he murmurs through cracked lips. “Am I dead?”

 

“You’re pretty close,” she grumbles.

 

He smiles, and even through the scruffy beard she can see the dimple in his cheek.

 

“You’re beautiful.”

 

“Getting closer.”

 

He moves as though to get up, but doesn’t get further than lifting himself onto his elbows before a long, low groan and a series of hacking coughs stop him in his tracks.

 

“Are you okay?” she asks, stepping forward without thinking and grabbing hold of his trembling shoulder. “Do you need a doctor?”

 

“You offering?” he wheezes, and drops back to the sofa with a thud as she releases him. 

 

“Creep.”

 

“Killian.”

 

That dimple again, and she kind of wants to slap it.

 

“Excuse you?”

 

“Me, Killian. You?”

 

The eyebrows go up an alarmingly long way and Emma struggles to smother a laugh.

 

“Yeah, I don’t think so buddy. Tell you what, you lie here and fester all you like, but do the rest of the city a favour and do it in headphones, yeah?”

 

She hears the thud of something heavy hitting the floor as she turns her back, but lets the door shut behind her without so much of a glance over her shoulder.

 

“I hate this fucking country.”

 

\---

 

She wakes slowly, her head throbbing in protest as she peels herself off the pleather sofa and half-heartedly blows her hair from her face, the incessant wailing of the Skype tone making her ears ring as she slaps the laptop closed.

 

Mary Margaret will only worry, after all. And it’s early. Still dark out.

 

She catches sight of the kitchen clock and groans.

 

Not early. Oh. Oh well. What’s a bit more panic between friends? It’s not like Mary Margaret can send David round to check on her from the other side of the ocean.

 

There’s a knock at the door, and Emma stares at the closed laptop, mouth agape.

 

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

 

The knock comes again, a little more insistent this time.

 

“If that’s you, David,” she calls as she bodily drags herself toward the door, “I will beat you with your own badge.”

 

She swings open the door and scowls into the corridor.

 

“Not David,” says the stalker-stairwell-pastry-neighbor guy, wincing slightly under the power of her glare, “but probably just as deserving of your ire.”

 

“Probably,” says Emma, and goes to close the door in his face.

 

“Wait!” 

 

She wouldn’t, but his foot is in her door. Makes it difficult.

 

“I will gut you,” she tells him solemnly. “Get. Out.”

 

“Ok look,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. “We - very clearly - got off on the wrong foot.”

 

“This foot?” she nods to the one pressed between her door and the frame. “You don’t need to worry about this foot anymore. I’m keeping it in a  _ jar _ .”

 

He winces.

 

“Ok. Ok. Look, last night was a bad one, a bit of an anniversary. I wanted to apologise. And since you’re American and - obviously quite spirited. I wondered if you had Thanksgiving plans?”

 

Emma takes several deep breaths as her brain struggles to compute that information.

 

“Sorry, what?”

 

“Thanksgiving. That is today isn’t it? It was on the news and - ”

 

“You thought what, exactly?”

 

He looks her dead in the eye for the first time. “I thought you looked lonely.”

 

She blinks. Rewinds the conversation in her head and repeats his words slowly as though trying to translate some ancient tongue. “You thought I looked lonely.”

 

“You’re a long way from home,” he says, and it actually sounds genuine, like he’s  _ actually  _ thought these things, “and it’s a special day. I have pie.”

 

Emma’s eyes narrow. The door opens almost imperceptibly wider.

 

“What sort of pie?”

 

—

 

“You’ve never done this before, have you?”

 

“What gave me away?”

 

Emma hums gently, and taps the prongs of her plastic fork against the greaseproof paper bag that has been fashioned through judicious tearing into a sort of plate. The Greggs’ ‘Festive Pasty’ steams lightly atop it, the pastry bubbling lightly at one corner.

 

“Most people who host dinners have more than one plate.”

 

“I did offer,” says Killian, tapping the chipped edge of his own plate with a rather more substantial fork.

 

“Also this isn’t technically a pie. And,” she adds, smiling slightly, “you forgot the sides.”

 

“Ah ha!” he beams at her, and she finds her own smile growing more genuine in response. “Thank you for the reminder!”

 

He rises from his chair to rifle through one of the kitchen cupboards. They don’t seem to be as bare as Emma might expect from a man who serves pre-mades pastries to guests, and his search gives her time to take a slightly closer look at her surroundings than she’d managed last night.

 

The apartment itself is almost identical to her own, but to her surprise it seems considerably nicer. The decor, though a little tired, had been put together with some thought, and under the layers of dust and take out cartons she spies a sideboard and coffee table that would turn Mary Margaret green with envy. Copper bottomed pans hang from hooks installed over the stove, and there’s a pretty fancy stand mixer tucked away incongruously behind several empty bottles of rum.

 

It’s almost as though Killian is a squatter in someone else’s life. Emma sits lower in her chair and attempts to read one of the newspaper clippings that have been brushed into a pile.

 

_ Tragedy at S- _

 

His cry of triumph as he emerges from the cupboard makes her jump.

 

“What,” she asks, warily eyeing the box he’s holding aloft, “is ‘Smash’?”

 

“It’s mash,” he says as though she’s rather foolish. “There’s a picture of it on the box.”

 

“You eat potatoes from a box?”

 

“Well,” he shrugs slightly, his cheeks turning pink, “it’s the best I can do under the circumstances.” 

 

“The circumstances being inviting me for dinner?”

 

He shrugs again. “Can’t say I was expecting you to accept, if I’m honest.”

 

“Honestly, I’m kinda surprised too,” Emma admits, and spears the pastry with her fork. “If I’d known it was  _ this _ impressive however…”

 

“Hey!” Killian sits back down and rests his hands on the tabletop. “I can cook, you know.”

 

“Jury’s out.”

 

Killian’s brow furrows momentarily.

 

“It’s not as easy as it used to be, that’s all. Not much is.”

 

She follows the line of his gaze to where his hands rest, and immediately wishes for the floor to swallow her up, or maybe for a very conveniently timed tornado to whip through and carry her bodily back to Boston.

 

Hand.

 

Fuck.

 

He realises that she’s noticed at the same moment a pathetic guilty little gasp escapes her, and shoves both his flesh and blood hand and the skin coloured prosthetic under the table.

 

“I am so sorry,” she garbles, “I didn’t - ”

 

He laughs harshly. 

 

“Please, don’t. I didn’t invite you over for your pity.”

 

He doesn’t lift his eyes back to meet hers, staring instead at the space his prosthetic hand had occupied. There’s a twitch in his jaw that wasn’t there before, and his hair casts a shadow over his face that makes his cheeks look strangely hollow.

 

He looks sad.

 

Lonely.

 

Emma has never been great at sympathy, nor skilled with platitudes or stories of hope. Those have always been Mary Margaret’s domain, just like the romcoms.

 

She knows a bit about being lonely though. She can play to her strengths.

 

“No,” she agrees, swallowing hard and forcing a smile, “you invited me for a terrible pastry.”

 

His lips twitch, and she feels something warm surging in her chest. Victory, maybe. Satisfaction.

 

“Terrible?” he says, and his dimple flashes.

 

(The warmth tingles. It’s nice.)

 

\--

 

The pastry isn’t really that terrible, but it does little to soak up the rum.

 

“You’re kidding!”

 

“I assure you, I am not!”

 

She giggles, really giggles for the first time in... in  _ ever _ it feels like, and wags her finger in his face.

 

“I’m not pretending. Mary Margaret’s are way better!”

 

“Never said you should! Only that in  _ polite  _ company - ”

 

“Y _ ou _ ? Don’t make me laugh.”

 

“All right, all right,” he holds both hands up in defeat. “There was a time when I was the epitome of good form.”

 

“Unlikely.”

 

“Rude. I’ll have you know that I was once a lieutenant in her Majesty’s navy.”

 

Emma makes a show of looking him up and down, her eyes lingering ever so slightly longer than they should on the skin exposed by his slightly open shirt.

 

“You look more like a pirate to me.”

 

He grins, and in the harsh glare of the striplight it looks almost feral.

 

“Things change.”

 

“So I see,” says Emma, reaching for the bottle. “Still like your rum though.”

 

“My brother wasn’t a fan of my habits in that respect. Told me if I wanted to be drunk onboard I’d better get a ship of my own.”

 

“And did you?” asks Emma. “Get a boat, I mean, not get drunk on it.”

 

Killian’s mouth works as though the words he’s about to speak taste bitter on his tongue.

 

“Neither,” he says eventually. “Lost my hand, my brother and my commission, but at least I was sober, aye?” He lifts his glass and takes a gulp. “To priorities.”

 

She raises her own glass in reply. “Priorities. And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

 

“For which part?”

 

“All of it.” She shrugs. “I never had any of those things… security, family. It sucks. But I guess it’s harder to miss what you’ve never had.”

 

It’s Killian’s turn to examine her now, and she looks down into her glass to avoid his knowing gaze.

 

“Is that why you ended up here?”

 

“Sort of,” she admits. “I came to meet my mother.”

 

Killian lets out a low whistle.

 

“That’s a hell of a decision, Swan, coming all this way. And alone at that.”

 

“No one to come with me,” she mutters. “Well, friends, but they have their own lives. Plus, they think I’m an idiot.”

 

“How so?”

 

“This woman, she contacted me, told me she’d found my mother and that she wanted to meet me but she needed money for - for some legal fee or - I should have looked into it more I know but - ”

 

Killian slides his hand over the table and covers hers. Funny, she hadn't realised it was shaking until it stopped.

 

“You wanted to be wanted,” he says, and she blinks up at him through wide eyes. He smiles, small and a little bit guilty. “You’re something of an open book, did you know that?”

 

And she should be furious. Sharp bitter words should pour out of her like  _ how dare you  _ and  _ who do you think you are _ . But they remain unspoken behind that warm tingle, replaced by something she doesn’t know how to name.

 

Relief, or maybe not.

 

She takes a deep breath.

 

The air seems thinner, the room hotter. Must be the rum. Must be.

 

“Thank you,” she says, pushing her chair back from the table. “For dinner. And for the company, I guess.”

 

“You guess?”

 

She shrugs. “I’m not great at this kind of thing.”

 

Killian raises an eyebrow. “Which thing?”

 

_ All the things _ , she thinks but does not say.  _ You. I’m not good at you. _

 

“The company thing. And,” she admits, “probably the thankyou thing, too. I’m out of practice at both.”

 

“It’s been my pleasure,” Killian assures her. “Truly.”

 

“Really?”

 

She hates herself for asking, because why should it matter. Why should she care if some random British drunk wants to spend time with her or not? 

 

She does though. God help her but she does.

 

“Really,” he says, and smiles.

 

She’s fucked.

 

\---

 

The rain continues through December, a dank constant drip from the Christmas lights strung high above Oxford Street that creeps down her collar.

 

Every time she speaks to Mary Margaret she can hear the veneer of cheerfulness in the other woman’s voice chipping thinner as Emma fills her in on what’s happening.

 

She’s had one phone call from Zelena, a hurried thing one Tuesday afternoon where Zelena spilled a few platitudes - a  _ terribly sorry for the delay, business is very busy _ , an assurance that  _ your mother just can’t  _ wait  _ to meet you, but you see there’s another little bit of paperwork and these things take so much time _ \- and seemed to only half listen to Emma’s increasingly fraught queries. How long. How long. How long. 

 

Zelena had hemmed and hawed before saying  _ sorry darling, I must go, I’ll call you straight back! _

 

And ever since, nothing.

 

Nothing further regarding her parents, whoever they may be, Zelena’s office quiet, her answerphone full.

 

Nothing at all with Killian.

 

_ (What aren’t you telling me, Emma? _

 

_ Honestly, nothing _ .)

 

Nothing in the dinners he brings her. Nothing to the way his smile makes her heart catch.

 

Nothing of his trip across the city to Zelena’s office, or the way his eyes had softened as he shook his head.

 

_ There was no answer, Swan. I’m sorry. _

 

(She is too, she thinks. But not for the reasons she should be.)

 

It would have been rude of her not to thank him  _ somehow  _ for his kindness at Thanksgiving, that’s all. It’s only etiquette that has her traipsing the streets of the city until she stumbles upon what she’s looking for, her lips pursed and hands on her hips as she peers through the window.

 

Etiquette, or stupidity.

 

A goddamn boat. Well, if that’s what he wants. She  _ does _ owe him.

 

(She does want to see the way his cheeks dimple when he smiles.

 

She doesn’t want to examine that too closely.)

 

She buys wrapping paper, a ready-made ribbon and a card with a rum-drunk Santa lying spread-eagled on the roof of a block like their own, and takes them all back to the apartment, spreads them across the kitchen table, and stares at them.

 

She stares at them for a long, long time.

 

She stops just long enough to fire off another email to Zelena, making sure to check the box for a read receipt this time, and to shove one of the ready meals in the microwave, only to eat it standing at the counter glaring daggers at the little festive display on her table.

 

She can’t remember the last time she brought a gift for someone that wasn’t Mary Margaret or David. She doesn’t think she’s ever brought a gift for a - for a whatever Killian is to her.

 

A neighbour, a friend, a friendly neighbour.

 

The jolly snowmen on the paper suddenly appear to be jeering.

 

Bastards.

 

She can do this. She can give a guy a gift. It’s not like she’s asking for his hand in marriage, or his health insurance, or...

 

“Fuck,” she mumbles around a mouthful of lukewarm chowmein. “Tape.”

 

\--

 

He answers his door with tinsel in his hair and a blob of fake snow in his beard, wearing a grin so wide it makes her heart contract.

 

“Swan!” he cries, grabbing her by the elbow and dragging her over the threshold. “Excellent timing!”

 

“That seems unlikely.” Emma glances up in alarm at the ungodly number of green and red foil decorations hanging from the ceiling. “Did you get a mall gig or something, Santa?”

 

“This?” Killian gestures expansively to the garish display. “This is nothing. Come on.”

 

She lets him lead her into the living area, and the sight that greets her is enough to have her stop dead in her tracks, her mouth hanging open.

 

In the centre of the living room, surrounded by boxes of the worst Christmas decorations Emma has ever seen, is a little boy.

 

“Impressive stash, wouldn’t you say?” Killian says, elbowing her.

 

Emma nods dumbly. The little boy smiles up at her, a gap where his front teeth should be and  _ this is ridiculous _ . It’s like the miracle on 34th street actually took place in a leaky rental in Peckham. She’s expecting Santa Claus to come rolling from the bedroom at any moment.

 

“Who are you?” asks the kid.

 

Well. That’s a question for the ages for sure. She looks to Killian in the hope he may have a better answer for the kid than she could give herself back in her kitchen.

 

“This is Emma,” There’s that smile again. The heart-clenching one she can’t quite look at. “She’s my new neighbour.”

 

The child tilts his head to one side and examines her.

 

“What do you live here for? Daddy says it’s a sh - ”

 

“Anyway!” Killian carols, his voice several octaves higher than normal. “Your Daddy’s opinion on my home notwithstanding, Roland, there’s no need to be rude. Say hello.”

 

Your Daddy. Okay. Okay.

 

“Hello,” says Roland again.

 

Emma waves. Blinks. “Hi.”

 

Roland’s eyes light up and he leaps to his feet, spilling sparkling garlands and piles of brightly coloured baubles from his lap, half tripping over them as he bolts towards her.

 

“You’re American!”

 

She’s not terribly experienced with kids. Not since she was one, anyway, and those experiences had been miserable, lonely things full of spite and sharp words and sharper slaps. 

 

She glances at Killian from the corner of her eye, but he’s just smiling down at the kid and he still has that stupid snow stuck to his chin. No help there, then.

 

“Yeah,” she says, mirroring the kids wide smile. “I guess I am.”

 

“Cool! Do you know the president? My mom says he’s a - ”

 

“Roland!”

 

Emma laughs, and drops to her knees to hold out a hand for Roland to shake.

 

“You know what? Your mom’s right.”

 

\---

 

“I will admit,” she says some hours later shaking pine needles from her hair, “I did not see you as the babysitting sort.”

 

“Really?” he laughs, softly, so as not to wake the snoring child draped across his lap. “Can’t think why.”

 

“It’s nice,” she blurts, and bites her lip forcefully to hide her wince. “I mean… not that I didn’t think you were nice before…”

 

“You thought I was a screaming alcoholic with terrible taste in music and a severe cholesterol problem.” He lifts an eyebrow, one gently festooned with red glitter. “You can say it.”

 

Emma grins. “Can you blame me?”

 

“No one would.”

 

“Roland might. He’s a pretty opinionated kid.”

 

“Ah well, you haven’t met his mother. A more terrifying tyrant I’ve never had the misfortune to meet. I’m practically a pussycat in comparison.”

 

“I’ll bet.”

 

“His dad’s a good bloke though. Trusts me with him, though I’ve no idea why.”

 

Emma tilts her head to one side and considers him through narrowed eyes. “You don’t think much of yourself, do you?”

 

Killian sighs and shakes his head. “Not especially, but then I’ve not always had the best form.”

 

“So you’ve had shitty luck, doesn’t make you a terrible person.”

 

“Doesn’t it?” Killian leans forward into her space, and her breath catches. “Why are you so very hard on yourself then, Swan?”

 

“Excuse me?” 

 

He shakes his head. “You don’t think you deserve good things. A family, friends. You even wince whenever you mention your work, as if you expect me to laugh at you for it. Why is that?”

 

“None of your - ”

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, sounding genuinely contrite, “I didn’t mean to push. I just - you’re rather remarkable Swan, you know that?”

 

Emma blinks, hard, the sudden burning sensation at the back of her eyes taking her by surprise. Killian’s eyes are soft and focused on hers, and it’s all too much suddenly. The tinsel and the Christmas lights, the gentle snores of Roland and the tingling of her skin as Killian shifts imperceptibly closer.

 

Far too much.

 

She knows  _ that _ .

 

“Tape,” she manages, though her throat is suddenly dry and the words seem to be sticking to her teeth. “Do you have any tape?”

 

To his credit, Killian doesn’t push. Instead he smiles a small, knowing sort of smile, and nods his head in the direction of the kitchen.

 

“Third drawer down,” he says mildly. “Forgive me for not getting up but - ”

 

He inclines his head toward Roland’s sleeping form, and Emma nods quickly, thankful for the chance to escape.

 

“I’ll bring it back,” she swears as she backs towards the door, “I’ll just - ”

 

“You know where I am.”

 

She nods again, grappling for the door handle with her free hand.

 

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah.”

 

She knows from the moment she closes the door behind her she won’t be going back.

 

—-

 

She goes back.

 

Another ten bounced emails and a concerned phone call from her bank, and she doesn’t quite know what to do with herself. She daren’t call Mary Margaret - can’t face her pity or David’s outraged fury - and she’s pretty sure she’s one shot of single malt away from pickling herself alive, so it’s only with mild trepidation really that she carefully places the garish red bow on top of her wrapping masterpiece.

 

It falls off almost immediately of course, but it’s supposed to be the thought that counts.

 

She shakes herself a little, shifting her weight from foot to foot as her knuckles hover over the door.

 

“Don’t be an idiot,” she says to herself, but she isn’t sure if she’s encouraging herself to knock or turn tail and bury herself under her sheets til at least New Year’s.

 

She doesn’t have to decide though, because the door swings open without her touch - again - and god Killian has a terrible sense of security and - 

 

“Oh,” she says. “Hi.”

 

“Hi,” says Killian. He’s wearing a leather jacket and clutching a red velveteen sack. She can see the perfect wrapping from here. The stylish bows and matching gift tags. The guy has one hand for fuck’s sake.

 

She should have run.

 

“I’m sorry,” spills out of her before she can stop it, even though she’s can’t think for a moment what on earth she’s apologising for.

 

“Wh - no,  no, I’m…” Killian drops the bag and steps back over the threshold. “Come in!”

 

“Aren’t you - ” she gestures vaguely at the bag. “Busy?”

 

“I was just going to drop these over at Robin’s, it’s not - ” he pauses, slanting his head to one side and assessing her shrewdly. “Everything alright, Swan?”

 

She opens her mouth to say  _ yes, yes of course it is, why wouldn’t it be _ but he words won’t quite come out and she shrugs instead.

 

“I thought as much, come on.”

 

“You’re busy, I’ll just - ”

 

“Sit in the dark drinking and wondering where it all went wrong? Leave that up to me, eh?” He winks. “I make a far more delightful brooding type anyway, wouldn’t you say?”

 

She sort of wants to roll her eyes, but he’s sort of right.

 

Brooding looks good in leather.

 

“I suppose I could use the company,” she admits, and his smile seems to light up the whole corridor.

 

“Excellent, I could use an elf.”

 

\---

 

They take the overground to Victoria, and make their way through the rapidly darkening streets towards Belgravia. There are none of the gaudy flashing lights or enormous light up Santas here. Instead it's a world full of warm white Christmas lights and the edges of real trees peeking from behind curtains that probably cost more than every item of furniture in Emma’s apartment. Combined. 

 

Suffice to say it’s a part of town that Emma may have found somewhat intimidating even on her best day. In Killian’s borrowed elf hat, it’s like walking into a nightmare.

 

“I hate you,” she grits out from between her teeth, the bell on her hat jingling obnoxiously with every step. “So very much.”

 

“I promise it’ll be worth it when you see Roland’s face, and if not, I can guarantee that Regina purchases much better liquor than I do.”

 

“I’ll bet she does. Does her butler serve it as well?”

 

“Ah,” says Killian jovially, “you’ve met her.”

 

“I really hate you.”

 

“Join the club, love,” he says, and winks. Emma is strongly tempted to smother him with his own fake beard.

 

Regina and Robin’s home is a columned Georgian monstrosity that back home would have crowds of tourists scaling its slate steps to peer in through the tall sash windows. Here though, it’s just one in a long line of similar properties that stare out impassively at the huge glass and steel modernist building opposite.

 

It’s a funny old town.

 

Emma doesn’t know quite what to expect when Killian rings the doorbell: staff, servants, maybe the Queen herself bedecked in a jewelled tiara? Instead, she hears the hammering of excited feet and the squeal of  _ Killian!  _ just before a tiny hurricane throws open the door and launches itself into Killian’s arms.

 

Killian laughs, a deep belly-shaking thing, and throws the sack to Emma so he can get a better grip on Roland’s wriggling form.

 

“It’s Christmas!” Roland shrieks, grabbing Killian’s face with both his chubby hands and squeezing. “Killian, it’s Christmas!”

 

“Is it?” Killian mumbles from between forcibly pursed lips. “I had no idea.”

 

Roland huffs, and worms his way out of Killian’s grasp. “Mommy says Santa doesn’t visit smartasses.”

 

“Well,” Killian says, winking down at him, “she would know.”

 

“She would know what?”

 

A slim dark haired woman in towering heels and an extremely smart suit has appeared in the doorway and is looking down at the little group on the steps with the sort of expression that makes Emma whip off the elf hat and stuff it as hard as she can into the sack.

 

The woman watches her, and raises one perfect eyebrow.

 

“Who,” she says in clipped New England tones, “is that?”

 

“Emma Swan,” Emma says, lifting her chin and meeting the woman’s gaze with a hard stare of her own. “Killian’s friend.”

 

“Friend?” The other eyebrow goes up. “Killian doesn’t have friends.”

 

“So much for the festive spirit,” grouses Killian, but Roland bolts back up the stairs and, swinging from the hem of his mother’s jacket, announces:

 

“It’s true, Mommy! Emma helped me make a snowman out of cotton wool and a Santa and all the snowflakes and - ”

 

Regina’s expression, if possible, grows even colder. “Is that so?”

 

“Yeah,” says Emma, and tosses her hair over her shoulder. “It is.”

 

“Are you done posturing, Regina?” asks Killian with an air of constructed nonchalance. “It’s Christmas Eve and I’m fucking cold.” 

 

Regina steps aside.

 

“You’d better come in then,” she says. “Seems like you’ve some things to share.”

 

—

 

Nobody expects the Inquisition.

 

Especially not at 8pm on Christmas Eve in the shadow of a large and rather lopsidedly decorated fir tree. Nor would Emma have expected it to be catered by Waitrose. Nonetheless, a cheerful man in a festive sweater lays out canapes as Regina glares somewhat suspiciously at Emma.

 

“I think this was a mistake.”

 

“Please excuse Regina,” Killian says, only slightly too loudly. “She’s a barrister; she makes a living out of being distrustful. The rudeness, however, she was born to. Mince pie?”

 

“Mince - do you know what? I’ll pass.”

 

“They’re good!”

 

“I’ll take your word for it.”

 

The festively attired man - Robin, she presumes, and indeed there’s a delightful googly-eyed knitted version of his namesake stretched across his chest - laughs brightly and slaps his hand down on Emma’s shoulder. “You remind me of Regina the first time I offered her an egg custard.”

 

“It looked like vomit and still does,” says Regina without cracking a smile. “And don’t get me started on puddings.”

 

“You should have seen her face the first time she had Yorkshires,” says Robin, and winks like Emma has a clue what he’s on about.

 

“Isn’t that a place?”

 

“Well, so’s cheddar but you lot never get confused by that.”

 

“Cheddar’s a place?”

 

Regina coughs. “Adorable as your little culinary My Fair Lady act is, who are you, and why did  _ you -”  _ she jabs a finger at Killian, “- bring her to my house unannounced?”

 

“Relax,” Killian groans. “Emma’s my neighbour.”

 

“I thought your neighbour lived in Monaco and let the flat to idiots in fanny packs?”

 

“Yeah.” Emma wriggles her fingers in an approximation of a wave. “Idiot in a fanny pack right here. Except, y’know -” she lifts the sack she’s still holding, “- seasonally appropriate.”

 

“So what brings you to London, Emma?” asks Robin. He moves to stand next to Regina, and Emma notes the way she seems to melt, ever so slightly, in his presence.

 

“Oh,” she says, “stuff.”

 

_ Private stuff,  _ she adds mentally.  _ None of your business. _

 

Regina, no matter how terrifying she may look, clearly cannot read minds. “What sort of  _ stuff _ ?”

 

“Emma’s in bail bonds,” interjects Killian. “She tracks people down.”

 

Robin’s eyes go wide. “Like that guy with the hair and the gun and the wife with the big - ” he sees the slow, horrified shake of Killian’s head, and manages to spit out, “thingies?”

 

“No,” Emma says. “Not like that. Well. Not always.”

 

“You have a gun?” pipes up Roland, lifting his face from a plate of cocktail sausages. “Can I see?”

 

“No!” 

 

Regina takes a deep breath, and fixes a smile on her face as she looks down on her son. “Run along and fetch your pyjamas, Roland. Mommy and the other grown ups need a little chat.”

 

“Even Uncle Killian?” Roland pouts. “But you said - ”

 

“I said fetch your pyjamas,” Regina hisses from between clenched teeth. “Santa is watching.”

 

That’s enough to send Roland from the room, his little head swivelling to check for observers as he scurries down the hallway.

 

“Bit harsh, this Santa lark,” Robin says conspiratorially, “but rather useful.” 

 

He claps his hands together cheerfully, apparently utterly undeterred by the way his wife and Killian are glaring at each other over his oak sideboard and best crockery.

 

“Drink?”

 

—-

 

God, but the British can drink.

 

Emma is used to Christmasses fuelled by Mary Margaret and David’s single six pack of Sam Adams and whatever cheap whiskey her last job afforded her. Robin and Regina not only have a vastly more impressive stock brought in for the occasion, but Robin proudly presents Emma with a bottle of homemade sloe gin that she’s too afraid to sip from, so pale does Killian turn at the sight of it.

 

“A gift,” Robin assures her.

 

“Perhaps, if you’ve always wanted to see your own stomach lining,” mutters Killian under his breath.

 

(Maybe she’ll save that one for a mark.)

 

“So you’re here on a case?” Robin asks after they’ve arranged themselves on the couches in the living room. “Although,” he laughs, “before you tell us anything too juicy, remember it might be Regina prosecuting!”

 

“Or defending,” says Regina, eyes narrow. “I can make an exception.”

 

“Nothing juicy,” she says, and presses her thigh against Killian’s for comfort as she continues. “Truth is it’s a personal case.”

 

“Ah well,” Robin nods. “Say no more. Unless we can be of any help?”

 

Regina’s slightly sour expression tells Emma exactly what she thinks of that.

 

“No, it’s fine, I’ve actually got a friend - somebody who’s supposed to be working on it so - ”

 

Regina’s ears perk up like a greyhounds at a racetrack. “Supposed to be?”

 

“Yeah, Zelena,” Emma laughs but it sounds fake to her own ears. “But I guess with the holidays she’s a little busy.”

 

Killian makes a non committal sort of grunting sound, and she leans ever so slightly further into his space.

 

Robin merely nods and makes some pun about not having the staff or something, but Regina’s eyes light up. “Zelena? I feel like I’ve heard that name before somewhere.”

 

“You don’t meet many,” says Robin. “Is it European, perhaps?”

 

Regina’s mouth curls into a sneer.

 

“Gifts!” Killian bolts upright. “Forgot the gifts! Where’s Roland gone, the toilet?  Do you think he fell in?” He pulls Emma to her feet, muttering from the corner of his mouth, “For the love of God don’t let Regina get started on Brexit.” Then, louder. “Swan and I will dish them out, aye? And then we really should be getting back, the trains you know.”

 

“Oh, I know,” Robin says, and there’s a wry sort of smile on his face that suggests Killian’s distraction techniques are just as transparent to him as they are to Emma. “Still up for New Year’s?”

 

Emma doesn’t miss the way his eyes slide over to her, or the quirk of his brow, or the heat of Killian’s gaze on the side of her face before he replies.

 

“Love to, mate.”

 

—-

 

They head back out into the darkness after handing over Killian’s meticulously wrapped gifts to a delighted Roland, Killian holding her hand as they wander aimlessly down streets several blocks from the station.

 

“I’m not in a rush,” he says, hesitating at the entrance to a park and squeezing her hand gently. “You?”

 

She shakes her head, the bell on her hat jingling merrily. 

 

“Nope.”

 

He smiles.

 

“Come for a walk?”

 

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah, ok.”

 

Christmas Eve has a strange sort of magic. It’s just as damp and miserable as it’s been for weeks, but there’s a tang to the air suddenly, the promise of snow maybe, or of something she can’t quite bring herself to name. The mysterious  _ something _ that she’d agreed to without knowing quite what it was, and that she can’t bring herself to regret.

 

They make it back to the apartment block -  _ it’s a block of flats, Swan, and not a very nice one at that - _ well before midnight, her pitifully wrapped gift still sitting on the tiled floor where she’d left it. She swipes it as Killian opens his apartment door, hiding it behind her back as he turns to her with raised brows.

 

“Netflix and chill, Swan?”

 

“Pervert,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “What type of girl do you take me for?”

 

“BBC One and political discussion it is,” he says brightly. “That better?”

 

She grins, her fingers tightening around the gift as she follows him inside.

 

“I didn’t say you were  _ wrong _ you know.”

 

\--

 

She sneaks the gift onto a side table and surreptitiously hides it behind a box of tissues while Killian take her jacket and elf hat and hangs them neatly on a peg beyond the door.

 

The whole apartment is tidier and smells of polish. She tries not to read into it.

 

“All right,” he says as they get comfortable on the couch, Emma’s feet tucked up under her and Killian’s arm lying over the back. “Since I am  _ such _ a gentleman, I’ll let you have first dibs on the remote. Have at it.”

 

He hands over the remote with a solemn formality that makes her snigger.

 

“Lets see what you’ve got,” she says, scrolling through the channels. “Although I thought you said Netflix.”

 

“And I thought you weren’t that sort of girl?”

 

“Fair. Oh!” she stops on one programme, Gillian Anderson’s shrewd eyes facing down a guy who looks alarmingly familiar. “Graham?!”

 

Killian’s eyebrows shoot up. “Pardon?”

 

“This guy! He used to work with David I’m sure! I didn’t know he was on TV here!”

 

“Emma,” says Killian slowly. “That’s Jamie Dornan.”

 

“Who?”

 

“Jamie - you know, Fifty Shades of Grey?”

 

Emma narrows her eyes at him. “You’ve watched Fifty Shades of Grey?”

 

“No! I - ” He gestures to the TV. “Let’s move on shall we?”

 

“Nah,” Enma settles back on the couch. “This looks good.”

 

“It’s about a serial killer!”

 

“And?” 

 

“Not very festive, is it.”

 

“People say that about Die Hard, and yet…” She catches sight of his sour expression and grins. “Okay fine, what’s a traditional British Christmas programme then?”

 

“Well,” Killian says cheerfully, taking the proffered remote. “Have you ever heard of Morecombe and Wise?”

 

\---

 

They watch ridiculous comedy shows from before either of them were born, miserable gritty soaps where everyone dies, and yes, the first twenty minutes of Die Hard, before the clock begins to tick towards midnight and the silence between them seems to become less comfortable as they inch closer together.

 

“I got you a - ”

 

“Do you want to - ”

 

They pause, and let out awkward puffs of laughter.

 

“Ladies first.” Killian lets go of her hand, and she wrings her hands together before pointing at the little parcel.

 

“A gift. For you. I got you it.”

 

“All right, Yoda,” he says. “You didn’t have to, I haven’t got anything for you.”

 

“That’s - ” She shrugs. “I mean, that’s not why I - I’m not good at this, you know.”

 

Killian’s mouth curls up at the corner. “I wouldn’t say that.”

 

“Will you stop? I’m trying to be sincere here.”

 

He sits back against the arm of the couch, all seriousness, and somehow that’s worse. Her heart pounds in her throat. “By all means.”

 

She takes a deep breath and reaches for his gift, pressing it into his hand.

 

“I know it’s probably silly, and I felt like an idiot looking for it, but you’ve been good to me since I got here even when I wasn’t so great to you, and I don’t have a lot of - a lot of friends or - or people who care. And you cared, so - ” He’s silent, staring at her, his eyes bluer than she remembers as she pushes the gift closer to his chest. “Open it.”

 

He examines the wrapping with an expression of mild horror. “Is this what you wanted the tape - ”

 

“Killian!”

 

“Okay, okay. I’m on the case, Swan.”

 

He peels back the layers of tissue paper delicately.

 

“Oh, Swan.”

 

“It’s not much - ”

 

“It’s perfect,” he says, slightly breathless as he lifts the little glass bottle from its paper nest. He holds it up so that the lights catch at the edges of the tiny ship within, and turns it this way and that, his face lit up like the Christmas tree. 

 

“Do you like it?” Emma shuffles, sinking deeper into the sofa. “I know it’s not a boat of your own, but - ”

 

“It’s perfect,” he assures her. “Thank you, Emma.”

 

She should have expected the hug - Mary Margaret would have hugged her under the circumstances - and yet she’s taken entirely by surprise as Killian wraps his arms around her and pulls her against him. The softness of his shirt against her cheek and the faint thud of his heartbeat take her breath away momentarily and she barely knows how to react, her mind screaming at her to run even as her body takes over. She wraps her arms around his neck and burrows her nose into his chest.

 

Just one hug, she tells herself. Can’t hurt.

 

It goes on a moment too long though, and then another, Killian shifting until she’s practically curled in his lap, the ship in a bottle and the television both forgotten as they breathe each other in.

 

She feels him shiver as she cards her fingers through his hair and clings on just a little tighter.

 

“Emma,” he says, the words stirring the hairs at the nape of her neck. “Emma - ”

 

His voice is strained, need hovering between the syllables of her name, and she knows she’s playing with fire. She can feel it in the touch of his hand at her lower back, in the way he sighs as she moves to sit up. And she has to sit up. She has to.

 

It’s almost Christmas.

 

“I should go,” she mutters, failing to extricate herself from his lap. “It’s getting late.”

 

Killian looks up at her with wide, dark eyes. “You don’t have - ”

 

“I do,” she says, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I do. I have to, Killian.”

 

He swallows hard, but nods as he helps her to her feet. “Of course,” he says, all gallantry as he kisses the back of her hand. “Would you - that is, would you give me the honour of joining me for New Year?”

 

She shouldn't. This is dangerous territory. Too dangerous, her heart aching at the hope sparking in his eyes.

 

“Yeah,” she says. “Yeah.”

 

She brushes his cheek with the lightest of kisses, and doesn’t run until his door closes behind her.

 

—

 

“Are you absolutely sure about this?”

 

Emma shuffles back against the warmth of Killian’s arm so that her toes remain just at the very edge of the light spilling from the bar.

 

_ Pub,  _ Killian had told her,  _ pay attention, Swan. _

 

She hadn’t known how to tell him she couldn’t concentrate on anything but the way his eyes sparkled when he laughed.

 

He’d think she’d gone mad.

 

She has.

 

“If you’re not comfortable, we can go home, I don’t mind.”

 

Emma takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “I don’t want you changing your plans because you feel obligated - ”

 

“Let me stop you there,” Killian says, his hand tightening on her shoulder. “There is nothing remotely  _ obligatory  _ about spending time with you.”

 

“So you keep saying.”

 

He sighs, the edge of a laugh on his exhale. “Perhaps one day you might believe me.”

 

He opens the door for her with a flourish, like some sort of  _ gentleman _ or something, and it’s hard to reconcile this man with the drunken mess she’d met a month ago. Hard to get her head around the way her heart races as his hand rests on her lower back. On the way she  _ likes  _ it.

 

It’s easy enough to spot their table. Robin is laughing loudly at something another guy is saying, slapping his thigh as he does so. Regina is perched between him and a real mountain of a man, her perfectly manicured hands folded neatly in front of her as she nods along to whatever the giant is saying.

 

The bar -  _ pub  _ \- is heaving, every table creaking under the weight of drinks and what looks like plates of microwaved curry, and Emma is briefly trapped in the centre of a group of excitable women, all of whom are wearing a combination of comedy glasses and deely boppers with small nodding penises atop. She sends Killian a pleading look as he turns back, and he pulls her out, laughing.

 

“Culture shock?”

 

She shakes her head, but holds on a little tighter. He doesn’t let go either, and that’s how they reach the table. Together.

 

It’s a big word.

 

It feels like a big kind of night, truth be told. 

 

“All right, miscreants,” says Killian brightly, sweeping a pile of coats off a stool for Emma to sit down, “this is Emma. She’s too good for you lot, so behave, understood?”

 

The man Robin was talking to salutes sloppily. “Aye aye,” he leans forward and offers Emma a leery sort of grin. “Heard all about you, love.”

 

Emma tilts her head and smiles, nodding seriously. “Did you hear how I once incapacitated a man with his own shoe?”

 

His hand, which had slid perilously close to her knee, swiftly disappears.

 

Killian inserts himself between them, and whispers to him. She sees the other man turn somewhat grey.

 

“It’s early yet, Will,” says Robin, “let’s try not to come to blows til at least one, yeah?”

 

“No one’s coming to blows,” says Regina firmly, “and I sincerely hope we aren’t intending to stay here all night.”

 

“Don’t be a snob, Reg,” says Will, “it’s cheap and cheerful.”

 

Regina runs her finger over the table top and sneers. “Cheap, certainly. I’d be more cheerful in a morgue. Emma?”

 

Emma blinks. “Sorry?”

 

“Is this really how you prefer to spend New Year’s?”

 

Behind them somewhere comes the sound of breaking glass followed by a roar of bawdy laughter. Killian’s hand is warm in hers.

 

“I’ve had worse,” she says. “If I was at home I’d be playing third wheel to my friends at best, or I’d be tracking down some scumbag or another.”

 

“So you decided to come for drinks with the scum instead,” says the giant man, and Will and Robin roar with laughter.

 

Regina rolls her eyes so hard that Emma practically hears it. “I need to use the powder room. Come with me, Emma.”

 

It’s not a request. Killian merely shrugs when Emma looks up at him, and extricates his hand so that she can stand up. She misses his warmth immediately, shoving her hand into her pocket to stave off the chill his touch has left in its wake.

 

They slalom through the packed bar, Regina clipping smartly ahead in her designer shoes and parting the seas of merrymakers until she reaches the battered door of the ladies room.

 

She lets it swing shut behind her and Emma takes a moment to gather herself, casting a quick look over her shoulder towards their group. Even from this distance she can see the blue of Killian’s eyes, the way his lips turn up at the edges as he waves.

 

It’s in that moment, surrounded by shouting drunkards she can barely understand and facing the prospect of being interrogated in the bathroom of Wetherspoons, that she realises she’s not felt so at home in… ever. Not ever.

 

The feeling is terrifying in its fragility.

 

The door swings open again to reveal Regina’s glowering face. “This year, ideally.”

 

“Last time anyone was this keen on me following them into the toilet, they were wearing a wedding dress wider than the door. What gives?”

 

“I’ve News,” she says, just like that, capitalised and flashing neon in the grimy mirror above her head. 

 

Emma’s stomach drops, leaden, to somewhere around her ankles. “About?”

 

“Congressional legislature, what do you think?” Regina opens her clutch and reaches for her lipstick, touching it up even though as far as Emma can tell it’s still a perfect blood red. “About your ‘friend’.”

 

“Killian?”

 

Regina pauses and pops the lid back on her lipstick with a raised brow. “The two of you still playing pretend?”

 

“We’re not - ”

 

“Never mind, I don’t especially care about your sex life. However, I am interested in how you came to be working with a known fraudster.”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“Your ‘friend’.” She even does the air quotes. “Tell me, how did you fool Killian? The poor lost girl act, was it?”

 

Emma’s jaw drops. “I don’t know what you’re -“

 

“Don’t play dumb with me,” Regina hisses. 

 

“What’s your problem?”

 

“Forgive me if I don’t faint with joy when strange women come and seduce their way into the lives of people I care about.”

 

“If anyone - do you know what, forget that.  _ You _ care about Killian?”

 

Regina appears briefly discombobulated. “People I care about care about him. Personally, I think he’s a barely functioning alcoholic with more baggage than an airport carousel, but he doesn’t need you adding to it.”

 

“Right.” Emma nods. “Because you think I’m working for a fraudster?”

 

“I think you seem far too intelligent to fall for a scam like this.”

 

“You - wait. What scam?” 

 

“The one people like you pull on the desperate, pretending to have found their family, pretending to be  _ like _ them. Did you tell him you’d found his father? Must have been a shock when he didn’t jump for joy.”

 

Emma feels the blood drain from her face and she knew. Oh god, she knew this would happen.

 

Idiot, idiot, idiot.

 

Regina’s scowl drops, replaced with the surprised quirk of an eyebrow. “But then appearances can be deceiving, it seems,” she says. “Your Zelena? Is currently detained awaiting trial. I thought she sounded familiar.”

 

“Oh god.” Emma sways against the sinks. “I think I’m going to puke.”

 

“You really didn’t know?”

 

Emma just shakes her head. Oh god. Oh god. She imagines Mary Margaret’s face when she tells her. The pity. 

 

She’s definitely going to puke.

 

A tiny crease forms between Regina’s brows.

 

“Oh. Then I’m sorry about the money.”

 

“The money?” Emma leans back, squeezing the cold enamel for all it’s worth. “Right. Right. The money.”

 

Her life savings, gone on this useless, pointless lie, this ridiculous quest born of desperation and some stupid spark of misplaced hope. There’s nobody waiting for Emma, no loving arms just around the corner, just more faithless, feckless, loveless…

 

“I’ll tell Killian you’re upset,” Regina says as she backs towards the door. “You should, I don’t know, smash something. If it’ll help.”

 

Killian.

 

Fuck, Killian.

 

Somewhere between puff pastry and The Fall, she’d forgotten that their time was limited. What had she even been thinking? That her long lost mother would appear bearing the equivalent of a green card? That she’d spend the rest of her days in a grotty apartment fashioning rainwear out of Tesco bags?

 

She was always going to have to leave. To leave him.

 

Without even really meaning to, she’d allowed herself to imagine what it might be like not to feel so alone in the world, to have a person, just one, to hold her hand. To matter most to. The loss of it crashes down on her, torn away in the twist of Regina’s mouth, the slam of the bathroom door. 

 

And Emma does something she hasn’t done in years, not even in the privacy of her own bedroom.

 

She sobs.

 

—-

 

The knock at the door is hesitant, and unusual enough for Emma to scrub her hands over her face and open it even though she’d rather sink into a hole in the ground and never come up.

 

“Swan?”

 

“What the - Killian?” 

 

He’s standing in the antechamber between the internal and external bathroom doors with his hand over his eyes.

 

“Regina said you were upset,” he says without moving his hand. “So I - ”

 

“Decided to grope your way around the ladies’ bathroom?”

 

“Not the descriptor I’d choose, Swan,” he says. “Are you alright?”

 

“No.” She takes a deep breath, and pulls his hand down, gripping it harder than she ever has before. “Not alright.”

 

She tugs him into the room and returns to her position by the sinks while he does his best not to look around too obviously.

 

“What’s happened?” he asks, the furrow deepening. “Was she rude? I’ve told her - ”

 

“No.” Emma shakes her head. “Well, no ruder than I think is normal.”

 

“So what is it?”

 

Her eyes fall shut.

 

“I got screwed. Zelena? She’s a con artist. There’s no family here for me. There never was.”

 

“Oh, Swan.” He pulls her in for a hug, squeezing tight as her shoulders shake. “I’m so very sorry.”

 

“I’m such an  _ idiot _ ,” she groans. “Why did I fall for it?”

 

“Enough of that.” Killian lifts her chin with his thumb. “You’re no idiot, Swan. You just wanted to be loved. That’s human.”

 

“That’s stupid.”

 

He gives her a ridiculous dopey grin.

 

“Am I?”

 

“W - what?”

 

“Stupid. Emma, I know you have to leave, but don’t go without knowing you matter.” He lowers his head until his mouth is just a hair's breadth from hers. “You matter to me.”

 

The touch of his lips is feather light, a test of the waters they’ll never have time to explore, but she chases them like a woman dying of thirst, catching at his bottom lip and sighing as he opens for her.

 

“Oh fuck it.”

 

She grabs him by the collar and half throws him through the door of the closest stall, slamming it shut behind her as he lands, sprawling, on the toilet seat. It’s simultaneously both the hottest and the most ridiculous thing she’s ever seen. His eyes are wide, his mouth slightly open as she jams the bolt into place.

 

“This is the ladies’ bathroom, Swan,” he garbles as she pulls him upright, his weight falling heavily against her and making the door rattle on its hinges. 

 

“I’m aware,” she growls, reaching for his belt buckle and pulling. “Come  _ on _ .”

 

“Emma.”

 

“What is this, some sort of chastity device? Jesus.”

 

“ _ Emma _ .”

 

“ _ What _ ?”

 

She looks up, blowing her hair away from her damp cheeks, and Killian runs the pad of his thumb over the teartracks beneath before resting his elbows either side of her head and pulling the weight of his body away from hers. 

 

“When I imagined this,” he says, his voice low, hie eyes roving over her face, “and believe me, I have imagined this, I didn’t think it would be in a Wetherspoon’s toilet surrounded by lipstick cocks.”

 

He lifts an eyebrow and inclines his head to one of the more detailed bits of graffiti that decorate the stall. “Not really creating a romantic ambience, is it?”

 

“I don’t care,” she says, and she isn’t sure if she’s ever meant anything as much as she means that, her whole body thrumming as he leans down and runs his nose along the line of her jaw. “Damn it, Killian, I don’t  _ care _ .”

 

She groans as his mouth finds the soft spot of skin beneath her ear and grinds his hips against hers. 

 

“Well if you insist - ”

 

“Oh I insist,” she growls, wrapping her leg around his waist as best she can in the small space. “I very much insist.  _ Fuck. _ ”

 

He rucks her dress up around her waist, his hand curving around her ass, before he runs calloused fingertips under the elastic of her underwear, tracing the way her thigh trembles as she tries to draw him closer still.

 

“You’re very impatient,” he breathes against her mouth as he teases her with the lightest of touches. “Behave.” 

 

“I’m very - oh god. Oh  _ god. _ ”

 

With a terrible crash of splintering wood the two of them fall backwards into the bathroom, Emma trapped - skirt tucked practically into her bra - beneath a clearly flustered Killian, just as the main door opens to admit a gaggle of rather drunk and highly delighted partygoers. The ones with the penis headbands. Of course.

 

There’s a chorus of wolf whistles as Killian struggles to his feet, the significant bulge in his already tight trousers making it more difficult than it should have been, and offers his hand to pull Emma from the wreckage of the bathroom door.

 

“Get it, girl!” cries one of the women, clapping her hands in delight. “Do it for all of us!”

 

“I will if you won’t,” crows her friend, looking Killian up and down and actually licking her lips as she does so. Emma tugs her dress down as best she can and tosses her hair over her shoulder.

 

“Oh I intend to,” she says, lifting her chin and pulling Killian behind her through the crowd, some of whom practically cheer as she passes them. “Come on. Let’s go home.”

 

“Best. New Year. Ever!” one of them calls after her. “Have fun!”

 

“Oh,” Killian says, and she can hear laughter in his voice even without looking at him, so single-minded is she in her determination to get him back to her flat and  _ destroy _ him, goddamnit. “I don’t think that will be a problem.”

 

\---

 

The rain stops not long after midnight while they’re recovering from their first frantic coupling, their clothes still scattered somewhere between the corridor outside and the end of Emma’s bed and the new year dawns bright and frost white. Winter sun pours through the windows, catching at the auburn in Killian’s hair and casting his profile into sharp relief against Emma’ rumpled pillows.

 

Even the weather hates her. If there was ever a day for rain this ought to be it.

 

Her phone seems to weigh a tonne, every swipe of her thumb causing her almost physical pain as she books, pays, messages Mary Margaret and David the same curt words.

 

_ Coming back. Don’t ask. _

 

What would she tell them if they did?

 

“Emma?”

 

His voice is low, rough from sleep and from, well, not sleep, but she can hear the question in it clear enough.

 

“I’ll make tea,” she says. “I’ve been practicing.”

 

She knows he watches her leave, but she doesn’t turn back. Doesn’t answer.

 

Doesn’t want to make it real.

 

She flicks on the TV while the kettle boils, grimacing at the soft Scottish tones of the early morning breakfast host.

 

Soon it won’t be Lorraine of the shiny hair and short skirts, or the violent bubbling of the electric kettle. It’ll be Rachel Ray’s excitable shrieking and the hum of the coffee machine. Bear claws instead of Bran Flakes. The constant buzz of the kitchen striplight will be nothing but a memory, and in its place -

 

“That light is irritating as fuck.”

 

Silence.

 

Her hand shakes slightly as she pouts the water into the chipped Sports Direct mug Killian always uses, her reflection a vague pink and yellow blur in the puddle that spreads across the countertop, his a dark smudge over her shoulder.

 

“Were you planning to speak to me at all?”

 

She turns too quickly, spilling tea onto her hand in the process. She’s thankful for the scald though, concentrating on the sting of it rather than the hollows under Killian’s eyes or the hunch in his shoulders.

 

“I don’t know what to say.”

 

“No,” he says, and his shoulders drop, defeated. “No, nor I.”

 

She tries for a smile, because she doesn’t want to leave it like this. Doesn’t want to leave with the image of him lost and hurting. Doesn’t want to leave him. Doesn’t want to leave.

 

“My flight’s at eight,” she says. “We could get lunch, maybe? I just need to - ”

 

“No.”

 

“What?”

 

His face crumples, his jaw so tight she can see the muscle jump as he struggles to force out his next words. “I think, perhaps, it might be better to - to say goodbye now, aye? Lets not draw it out.”

 

“Oh.” She feels the mug slipping from her fingers and tightens her grip, clinging to it as though it’s a lifeline. “If that’s what you want?”

 

She can’t help the sob in her voice - she’s barely keeping the burn in her eyes at bay - and of course he hears. Of course he does, this stupid, annoying, perfect man. He’s read her like a book from the first moment he met her; why would he fail now?

 

“ _ No _ !” The force of it scares her, makes her jump, half the contents of the mug splashing onto the floor before he reaches over and ever-so-gently takes it from her and puts it safely on the side. “No,” he says, low and gentle and oh so very sad, “no, it isn’t what I want.”

 

She takes a great, heaving breath, and the tears just pour out of her. Great, unglamourous snotty things that she ought to be ashamed of except Killian’s just as bad as she is, his eyes burning behind his own tears, his cheeks red.

 

“I’m so glad I met you,” he says fiercely, cupping her cheek with his hand and rubbing hopelessly at the torrent of tears. “You’re an incredible woman, Swan. Don’t ever forget that, okay?”

 

She nods, hiccuping, and presses her cheek into the warmth of his palm.

 

“Promise? You must promise me you won’t forget.”

 

“I promise.”

 

\---

 

She breaks that promise within hours of landing, bank statement in hand as she curses and rages at herself because how could she be so stupid, stupid, stupid.

 

She breaks that promise. But she doesn’t forget.

 

—-

 

Boston. February. Every surface in Mary Margaret’s apartment is covered in a fine layer of glitter, paper hearts strung between the kitchen columns as the woman herself pours glue into a bowl.

 

“Sure you don’t want to help?” Mary Margaret asks Emma, dipping a brush into the glue. “You never know who might be there.”

 

Emma shakes her head and swallows her mouthful of bagel.

 

“It’s bad enough that every time I walk through your door I get covered in craft herpes. I am not going on the pull at an elementary school disco. There are laws.”

 

Mary Margaret sighs and attacks another paper heart with the glitter. It rises up in a pink cloud around her hands. Emma shuffles further away.

 

“You and your Britishisms, you’d think you’d been there for six years not six weeks.”

 

“Yeah.” She pops the last piece of bagel in her mouth to mask her grimace. “Well.”

 

“Oh, Emma.” She drops her crafts, instead watching Emma chew, her face twisted in concern. It’s been that way since Emma returned, blotchy and taciturn and avoiding every one of Mary Margaret and David’s increasingly curious questions. She’d thought they might have given up by now, but instead they just look more worried each time she sees them. She doesn’t want to dwell on why that might be. “I wish you’d tell me what happened. I know there has to be more to it.”

 

“I’ve got three thousand dollars worth of reasons, Mary Margaret, and I’m going to be busy trying to fix  _ that _ , tonight. Not making eyes at single dads.”

 

“That’s all you do now,” Mary Margaret pleads. “Work!”

 

“What else am I supposed to do?” Emma asks, a little more fiercely than Mary Margaret probably deserves. “What else do I even  _ have _ ?”

 

“It’s Valentine’s Day, Emma,” she pleads. “Just try and have some hope?”

 

“I’m done hoping,” Emma says grimly as she rises to leave. “Thanks for lunch.”

 

“Be careful!” calls Mary Margaret. “Please!”

 

\---

 

She does try.

 

She doesn’t choose the most dangerous assignments for fun, or because she gets some sort of kick out of it, no matter what her friends might fear. They just pay the best. And she needs the money, after all.

 

Life savings don’t replenish themselves.

 

This one isn’t the worst - outstanding bail for assault - but she’s arranged to meet him in a brightly lit bar all the same.

 

The smell of stale beer never fails to carry her back to that night with Killian. Tracing curse words carved into the tables reminds her of the feel of the worn wood against her back. The warmth of his touch. The comfort, the rightness of it all.

 

She’d thought she’d known what it felt like to miss something - had missed things all her life - but this is different. A sharp pain lodged under her rib cage that flares every time she sees dark mussed hair, the sleeve of a leather jacket, hears a laugh that - if she closes her eyes - she could pretend, just for a moment, is his.

 

“Anna?”

 

Emma schools her expression into a smile, tossing her carefully curled hair over her shoulder and batting her eyelashes at her mark.

 

He’s a small, weasley little guy. His sort often are. 

 

“Hi!” she coos in a voice nothing like her own. “Jim?”

 

“That’s me!” He pulls out the chair and sits opposite her. “Interesting place. Busy.”

 

She fiddles with her hair and simpers. “A girl can’t be too careful.”

 

“Oh no?”

 

“Well you never know who might turn up,” she leans forward, tensing her body. “You gotta be prepared.”

 

“For what?” He laughs. “I’m a - “

 

“Emma?”

 

“ _ Emma _ ?”

 

She’s hallucinating. That’s the only explanation for why Killian Jones is walking towards her, a rucksack slung over his shoulder, looking just as beautiful as he had in her bed.

 

“Who the hell is Emma?” cries the mark. “What’s going on here!”

 

Killian stares at her as though she’s the hallucination, and she takes the opportunity to note the dark circles under his eyes and the lingering hollows of his cheeks. They hurt her, these signs of his misery, but she feels hope spark to life.

 

He’s here. He’s really here.

 

“It is you, isn’t it? Your boss said - ”

 

“You called my boss?”

 

He winces. “I may have overstepped, but - ”

 

The mark looks frantically between the two of them like a terrier at a tennis match. “Your  _ boss _ ? Are you a  _ whore _ ?”

 

Killian steps into his personal space, leaning over him with a tight sneer. “Say that again, mate?”

 

It’s posturing. She shouldn’t love it. (She does.)

 

“Oh for - you, you’re coming with me.” The mark tries to run for it, but with Killian blocking his escape it’s easy for Emma to bring him down, her knee firmly in his lower back. “Emma Swan. Bail bonds.”

 

“Oh fuck.”

 

She grins at the satisfying snap of the handcuffs. “You got that right.”

 

Killian drops to his knees so that he can look her in the eye, and she reaches out to touch his cheek with a trembling hand. He presses his face into her touch and she blinks back tears.

 

“What are you - how did you get here?”

 

“Aeroplane.” 

 

“You know what I mean!”

 

He smiles, wobbly but happy. “You look incredible, by the way. I knew this would suit you.”

 

She runs her thumb over the lines on his brow, much deeper than she remembers and shakes her head, lost for words.

 

“Zelena went to court,” he says. “Regina made sure she had to pay damages and this - this is yours.”

 

He holds out a cheque. The mark’s eyes go wide.

 

“You  _ are _ a whore!” Emma lets a little more weight rest on her knee. “Umph!”

 

“And you came here? To give it to me? On Valentine’s Day?”

 

“I know it won’t make up for it,” he says, and the cheque twitches between his fingers. “But we thought - I thought - it doesn’t matter what I thought, just that you didn’t deserve it and - ”

 

“Shut up.”

 

The mark groans as she launches herself into Killian’s arms, months of pent up misery escaping her in one shuddering sob. And it’s ridiculous - something straight from one of Mary Margaret’s goddamn romcoms - but she  _ knows _ this is what fate feels like. Killian tightens his grip and she knows neither of them will be letting go again. Not ever.

 

“Can I - ?” grunts the mark.

 

“Shut  _ up _ .” She presses kisses into Killian’s cheeks, his jaw, anywhere she can reach. “Oh god, just shut up.”

 

The cheque flutters to the floor. By. the time they realise - minutes or hours later, she’s never quite sure - it’s barely legible, covered in muck and beer stains and the frustrated spittle of the mark who’s practically begging to be taken to the station.

 

“Worth it,” she hums against Killian’s lips. “So worth it.”

 

And in the end, it is.


End file.
